South Africa’s first black president and anti-apartheid revolutionary died Thursday at the age of 95.

Santorum appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor” to discuss Mandela’s legacy. The former Pennsylvania State Senator told host Bill O’Reilly that fighting over the Affordable Care Act is like the fight against apartheid, under which South Africa was segregated and ruled by a minority Afrikaner class for over 50 years.

Black South Africans were given inferior education, medical care and other public services and those who were opposed to apartheid became political prisoners. Mandela served 27 years in prison.

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O’Reilly began the segment by calling Mandela a communist.

“He was a great man,” O’Reilly said, “but he was a communist, but I would never attack Nelson Mandela.”

O’Reilly said he may not agree with Mandela or anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu, but he respected them. He suggested that the GOP in Congress learn to work with each other out of the same kind of respect.

“So why can’t you can’t you guys in the Republican Party bring that to the floor?” he asked.

“Well Nelson Mandela stood up against a great injustice, and was willing to pay a huge price for that, and that’s the reason he mourned today, because of that struggle that he performed,” Santorum responded. “But you’re right, what he was advocating for was not necessarily the right answer, but he was fighting against some great injustice. And I would make the argument that, you know, we have a great injustice going on right now in this country, with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people’s lives. And Obamacare is front and center in that.”

After apartheid rule was ended, Mandela made a fundamental right to health care a part of the constitution and introduced a government-funded program to cover the cost of medical care for people who could not afford the private system.